I have a friend who knew Mormonism was bunk, but accepted a job at BYU, and was a professor there starting in the 1990s up to the present.

He and his wife said things that shocked me back in the day because I wasn’t yet ready back then to speak out.

Yet, because he could get a good job at BYU, he chose to live a lie.

I can only imagine the personal hell his life has become. That’s no way to live.

  He's not you, you're not him.

  Personally, I side with your point of view.  But I'm aware that there are more ways to get from point A to point B than my way.

  Maybe he's laughing his ass off every payday?

  Maybe he can compartmentalize his life so that the hours he spends as a BYU drone are acceptable payment for the freedom to live the other hours as he chooses?

  Maybe he's a sociopath, who has no problem selling his 9 to 5 soul if the price is right?

  Again, I get what you're saying, and it's always worth the time to point out hypocrisies, but I doubt you think that in the grand scale of things, this is the hill you choose to die on.

  I believe mormonism rewards sociopathy and the example you've given contributes to my notion.

Sure, there’s cold comfort throughout life, but anyone who is honest with themselves knows they are living a lie, and that is hell.

  Because of the basic outline of your story, there's a logical basis for supposing that you're at least into your late 30s.

  But now that I think about it, I didn't enter my cynical years until my late 40s...

  I'll just shrug my shoulders and offer up the tired and cynical observation that the world is not Black & White.

  Also, while I'm old and cynical, it's possible that I'm wishing the world were Black & White...  But it's not.

unconventionalideas Wrote:
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> Sure, there’s cold comfort throughout life, but
> anyone who is honest with themselves knows they
> are living a lie, and that is hell.


Hell for you and me, sure, but:

Saturdays on the golf course and braces for the kids and Hawaii in the Winter and never having to worry about driving a shitty car is a warmer comfort than you might imagine. Ask someone who doesn’t have to imagine it because they live it.

It’s not surprising that people sell their souls, but it does startle for how little many do so.

Besides, it’s easy to sell your soul when you don’t believe you have one in the first place.

Yup. Sometimes the devil is the only one open for business.

Thanks for the compliment. I’m actually 59.

I am a lover of literature, and therefore, I think about these sorts of things a lot. Perhaps that’s how you mistook me for someone much younger.

I mostly did so because of the idealism you displayed, which I admire, in the sense that I admire the playfulness of a happy, healthy puppy.

Thanks, I always felt that even when we’re older, there’s no rule against being idealistic while at the same time avoiding naivety.

"Nobody walks away from a fool and his money" - Badfinger

I spent my last year at BYU "living a lie". It is difficult to transfer to another university toward the end of a degree program. Plus I had not been outed to my parents yet. Not that they were paying for any of may schooling, but still. Plus my spouse was employed at BYU and she had a good job there (junior faculty).

Considering the circumstances, living a lie for a year and a bit was not all that bad.

So I kept my head down and graduated, and (almost) never set foot in an LDS chapel again except for funerals (three). I'm now the oldest in the family, so I will likely never darken a ward house door again. Works for me.


I had a friend, now deceased, whose dad was a BYU prof. The son left the church. I don't think he was all that sure of how much a believer his dad was, however I do know the professor/dad died of alcoholism. Perhaps a side effect of living a lie?

Pandemic sure made living the lie easier for a spell!

Lucky dogs ..

Speaking of alcoholism as an effect of living a lie, my mother was once doing redecorating for a General Authority, and found a bottle of hard liquour wrapped in a towel I believe, in his home gym.

... she was being tested ...

Here is my problem. Sell your own soul. No problem. Strike a good deal. Your lie, your life, your problem.

BUT I DRAW THE LINE WHERE YOU SUCK YOUR KIDS INTO IT.

No one has a right to do that. It is wrong and it is putting yourself not just ahead of but instead of. As a PARENT your job is to do the best you can for your kids. Period. We are all human, we all screw up but knowingly letting your kids get sucked into a lie/cult because it is what is EASY for you makes you a shit parent/human. Doing it for PROFIT makes you something that would get me deleted.

                            My yearly rant...


>
> No one has a right to do that.
>


    While I wholeheartedly agree with you regarding the standards human ought to maintain when it comes to children, we now venture into the ghastly realm of Rights v. Powers.

    The news media are telling us that parents are currently selling their kids in Afghanistan.  I hear the reports, I understand the how and the why of the bartering...I lament it, but every night I fall asleep and the next morning I've forgotten about the kids.  

    It's just the way it is  ...  hearing about a four-car pile-up in Paramus, NJ, with two fatalities, doesn't even register with me, here in North Disneyland.


    Bill Burr does a bit involving Michele Obama appearing in a national TV ad/appearance about finding and saving missing school girls in Africa.  The comedy is in his response to her, as if she could hear him: "

Hey!  Why don't you look across the dinner table, you know, at your husband, the leader of the free world!  Why are you asking me to go looking for the girls?  What am I gonna do?  I'm just a comedian!  Why don't you tell your husband to send a couple of Seal Teams over, and maybe some Delta Force guys, and let them deal with it!"



"Hey, you kids, you've got no right to be on my property, so get off my lawn!"

Rights v. Power is some very tricky shizz

False analogy EOD.

How is it not a "right v. powers" situation?

"Rights" are completely artificial and can only exist when "power" supports them.

I could not agree more. If you raise children in a cult that you don’t actually believe in, but only do it for the money, you are a pitiful human being. Your children will eventually figure out that you’re a moral coward.

If you got the better than usual paying job salary through generous LDS connections, the kids almost become collateral damage.

"Yet, because he could get a good job at BYU, he chose to live a lie."

Yeah, but this whole damn thing is a lie. Everything. It's the Kali Yuga. If there's no escape, why not go with a lie you understand?

I believe there’s a way to live with integrity in a corrupt world. Have you ever read any book by Dostoevsky?

unconventionalideas Wrote:
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> Have you ever read any book
> by Dostoevsky?

Yes, The Brothers is great literature for sure.


"I believe there’s a way to live with integrity in a corrupt world."

I don't know that this is possible without a level of conviction mostly metaphysical beliefs offer and in living like that one has to suffer.

I'm hoping to at least die with integrity and with all my parts not too corrupted.

The bishop wanted the ward's monthly sacrament number around 230.

Fact: It wasn't there with 150-180 the norm (with a lot of fudging).

T'was impossible to give him an honest answer. He wouldn't hear it.

Finally I gave in and gave him fabulous make-believe numbers.

Anyone with a brain could tell there were more empty pews than filled ones.

Honesty is meaningless in the church.

The make-believiest number of all is their total membership number of 16.x million members. And everybody, and I mean everybody who knows anything about Mormonism, in and out of the church, KNOWS it is make-believe.

Yes, but it's honest, faithful Make Believe, and so it is pleasing unto the lord.

Ya gotz ta have yer priorities in order!